Choosing greatness

by Pastor Tom

Like most of us, I’ve been paying close attention to the situation as it has been developing in North Korea. I really don’t understand what’s going on there, but that’s nothing new. Volumes could be written on what I don’t understand.

Pretty much of all I know is that there is this psychotic guy in charge over there with a really bad hairdo who, while the population of his country starves, is totally consumed with the notion of creating nuclear bombs. He could be doing lots of other things. He could invest himself in doing what the South Koreans have been doing. They have built quite an economy and created a pretty good standard of living for their citizenry. He could become a hero, and lead his people into a life of freedom and prosperity. He could do any number of great things. But, he has chosen to do what he is doing, which doesn’t make much sense.

Something must have happened to him somewhere along the way. Maybe his parents didn’t change his diaper often enough. Maybe he didn’t have parents. Perhaps the other kids picked on him when he was in school. It just might be that too many people made fun of his silly hairdo. Who knows?

The sad thing in all of this is that here is a person who has the opportunity and the means to do something really great, and instead, he chooses something destructive. We all know where his actions are taking him, even if he doesn’t.

I’m not certain where all this will lead. It could end up quite ugly. The notion of a nut like this with nuclear bombs is not a comforting thought.

Well, most of us probably don’t have entire nations at our disposal. However, we do have families and jobs and communities. And all of us have had some bad stuff come our way. And, just like Mr. Hairdo over in North Korea, we can all choose what we are going to do with ourselves. We can choose to be a blessing to those in our sphere of influence, or we can choose to be destructive or irritating or just plain worthless. It’s really up to us.

It amazes me that so many choose to miss the opportunity to be great. Parents choose to be uninvolved in the lives of their kids. Sons and daughters choose the low road of poor performance and bad behavior. Workers choose to just put in their time. Every day, people choose to be critics, slackers, no-counts, thieves, and worse.

One thing that this life offers each and every one of us is the opportunity to be great, even if we aren’t in charge of a whole nation, and even if things haven’t always gone right in our life. We can be great in our dealings with others. We can be the best thing that ever happened to somebody. It’s up to us.